From the Sketchbooks

I’ve talked a little previously on the subject of sketching and experimenting.

There’s a lot of different thought’s and practice on using sketchbooks, some artists meticulously plan their images, with sketches, tonal sketches, draft versions and so on. Others feel that doing test versions removes the spontaneity of what they are doing.

I err somewhat to the latter, though this is perhaps more due to impatience – and this is sometimes to my detriment, particualrly with testing the behaviour of a paint or mixture. I have started trying to do this a little more, and overcoming the impatience to get started by thinking ahead to pictures I would like to paint in the future, but am not ready to fully sit down and start.

I do, however, like to doodle. Sometimes this is just splotches of colour, or playing with paint, sometimes working on something a little more coherent. I am still very much developing my style in watercolour, and this is a key part.

I will also at this point just breifly wax lyrical about some great little sketchbooks I have found, in Poundland of all places – they are £1.50 for A5 and £2 for A4 spiral bound with some pretty decent cartridge paper, that is very nice to work on with watercolours and handles a pretty decent amount of wetting.

These are some quick sketches, exploring the shapes and colours of trees in a loose style. It’s really important to think about how trees grow when looking at their shapes and forms.

I expanded this a little into a small farm yard sketch – I am working in my mind on a series of paintings inspired by Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House” books, which some of these are slowly working towards.

In our landing hangs a large ox skull, which has a position as a kind of household god, and is dressed to the seasons as the year goes by. I am working, on and off, on a series of acrylic on canvas paintings inspired by this, but wanted to explore the bone colours and forms in watercolour, something I will expand to finished works later.

There’s not a massive reason for these roses. I was just playing with Cadmium Red and Potter’s pink and wanted to practice the forms of a rose, something I have photographed a number of times, but never really painted.

This came about from two things really. Firstly just testing some new Cerulean Blue (3/4″ oval wash brush and Cerulean Blue is instant blue skies) and then I put in a foreground with some of the earth colours I have been making myself.

The Jacksons ‘Blog has a good series on Inside the Sketchbook.